Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Can you think of a worse punishment?

It's the last week of summer. Do you know what that means? Two kids who have completely met their limit of getting along. For the first time in their little lives, they were in the same camp group all summer. This week has been the WORST (yes I know it's only Wednesday morning so we're talking Monday and Tuesday here). EVERY day (okay BOTH days) we get a report that they're not getting along at school. He feels the need to pick on her and take whatever she's playing with. She screeches until the teacher gets involved. Instructions to "stay away from each other" go unheeded.

Last night after being grounded from all technology and STILL bickering over SHRINKY DINKS of all things, Matt decides he's had it. I was doing yoga in the living room, trying to "OM" them right out of my brain. I hear Matt take charge so I continue on with my downward facing dog.

Matt instructed each of them to get a piece of paper and a pencil. Next he instructs them to each write three reasons why they love each other. Can you imagine the looks of horror on their faces? Skyler whines that she can't write so Matt instructs her to think of three things and he'll help her write them. They each suffer through this with lots of sighs and eye rolls. Some ideas are rejected by Dad but eventually they get through it. You can FEEL the relief from the next room, but Daddy isn't done with the punishment yet. He instructs them to stand facing each other and to READ the reasons why they love the other out loud. SERIOUS HORROR from Zack. A shouted "But I can't READ" from Skyler. At this point, I had to get up and take a look. They were facing each other in the middle of the kitchen and Zack looked like he would much prefer it if we just pulled out each of his toenails. Z mumbles through the first one "I love my sister because she shares her Leapster with me", it takes three tries before Daddy is convinced that he could hear him loudly and clearly. Skyler seems to be enjoying this part, probably because her brother is SO miserable. They get through professing their love for each other and so Matt instructs them to hug each other and say "I love you". Skyler had a look of pure joy on her face, she really does love him. Zack looked like he had just caught a serious case of the cooties and was going to have to go through decontamination.

Matt told them he wasn't convinced that they'd truly learned anything (maybe Skyler had) and that they were all going to repeat the exercise the next night so in the meantime they could each take a piece of tape and affix their lists to their bedroom wall where they could read it clearly before they went to bed and when they got up!